The planned removal of a homeless encampment on South Avenue accelerated unexpectedly Tuesday morning, as residents awoke to a demand from Spectrum representatives that they leave the property immediately.

Mercedes Mike, an organizer with Metro Justice, was arrested about 8:30 a.m. for trespassing after she refused Spectrum's request to leave. The attempted eviction fizzled out within two hours as Spectrum, RPD and the cleanup crews all left.

Police were not initially present but came when Spectrum called them after Mike declined to leave, Mike said. She paid $100 bail and was released before noon.

"This is a crisis. We are in a crisis," said Rosemary Rivera, organizing director for Citizen Action of New York.

"They were not bothering anyone, and honestly, it's not right. I would love for Mayor Lovely Warren to say something. ... She definitely needs to bring attention to the fact that homelessness is a plight, and it's getting worse."

In a statement, the Rochester Police Department said Charter, the parent company of Spectrum, will not be pressing charges.

"The city, the RPD (and) several social service partners from our community have been and will continue to work extensively in an effort to rectify this situation for the betterment of all involved," the statement read.

As Rivera stood wearing a red Citizen Action T-shirt in the center of the encampment taking phone call after phone call to update her team of volunteers, others began to pour in.

A woman, a man and two young children arrived bearing plates of food covered with tin foil and ceramic mugs filled with orange juice for camp residents who, like the rest of the small crowd that was forming, were trying to understand what was happening — and what was going to happen next.

In the works for several months

Spectrum owns the land where the tents are set up and has been planning some construction work there. Last week it erected orange snow fences and said it was working on a "dignified transition plan" for the residents.

"This isn't something that should have come as a surprise to anybody," Spectrum spokeswoman Lara Pritchard said Tuesday. "This has been in the works for several months."

She later followed up in an email: "The trespassing enforcement at our Rochester facility today follows a six-month effort to carry out a dignified transition for the people trespassing on our property. We helped the vast majority of the people affected identify alternative housing, and we will continue to work to help the people affected identify an option for safe housing."

She said Spectrum and other organizations have been in "consistent communication" with the residents and their advocates; she would not say, though, that anyone had been informed of an eviction coming Tuesday.

One resident, a woman named Diana who declined to give her last name, certainly was not informed of the early morning action.

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There were about six people at the encampment overnight, Diana said, including three veterans and two women.

Another resident, Geneo Brown, said that the number was closer to 10.

Brown was asleep in his tent when somebody began rattling it, waking him up to inform him that he needed to move out.

"As of April 16, I've been here two years," said Brown. "All we want to do is get to the next first (of the month) so we can get our apartments. There's four or five of us with apartments lined up, but we needed the 30 days to get it set up. What's wrong with 30 days, man? Everybody gets 30 days. That's like the basic rule of evicting people."

Lack of alternate housing

Brown, like the majority of Tent City residents, was born and raised in Rochester. The 62-year-old said that prior to pitching his tent on the hillside, he had bounced around between boarding homes, but had found the environment a difficult one to spend time in.

"It's pretty miserable living. It really is," Brown said of the boarding homes, which he described as being overcrowded with people looking for trouble. "That stuff will drive you up the wall. I don't mind being sociable, but I had been incarcerated for a long time and really don't like that crowding of people around me."

Tent City, said Brown, provided a welcomed alternative.

"This is a lot better. If I don't want to be a part of all of the madness, I get up and go. If I get tired, I come back here and crawl into my cube and can be to myself. I have more freedom," said Brown. "All of these people understand respecting each other's space. Everybody's got a different issue, but we feel secure here. Even though we don't talk that much, around 8 or 9 o'clock everybody is out here standing around, and everybody always says, 'Man, it's good to see you.'"

Brown was going through his things on Tuesday when an advocate from Person Centered Housing Options, Nicholas Coulter, came by with news that Brown might be able to move into his new apartment earlier than initially anticipated.

Still, Brown said that he wouldn't stop fighting for the others at the camp, who are currently without alternate living arrangements; a blind man, a younger guy who Brown suspected couldn't be much older than his late teenage years, a disabled woman who suffers from PTSD.

The woman, who goes by Jade and asked that her legal name not be used, came back to the encampment last night after some time away, and made a home for herself and her partner to sleep when they had nowhere else to go.

"This was helpful to me last night. Would you want your son or daughter to live like this? We need this to stay until we can find places to live," said Jade. "Stop throwing these people out of where they live. We need help. Help us."

A team of advocates mobilized quickly Tuesday morning and managed to chase off the cleanup crew in blue hazardous material suits as two RPD officers stood by.

"New York state is facing a homeless crisis right now and (it) is coming to roost right here in Rochester," Rivera, said. "Police were supposed to be reaching out ... to coordinate with (the homeless people) if they needed to move them. That never happened. ...

CLOSE

An organizer was arrested for trespassing when Rochester police arrived Tuesday morning.

"Right now, we don't know what the outcome is supposed to be with all these homeless people. Where are they going to go?"

A similar standoff in 2014-15 ended with the removal of an encampment beneath the Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge. The people living there were moved into a heated warehouse, then into a new shelter run by the House of Mercy.

More than 800 people in Monroe County are homeless on any given night, according to the Rochester/Monroe County Homeless Continuum of Care, a coordinating agency. Most of them find shelter but several dozen sleep outside even during the winter.